


Layers of Lies and Truths

by j0uii



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: AU Episode s03e07 Digestivo, Hannibal and Will talk, M/M, Time Jump, Will-typical sardonic angst, and talk and talk, i got carried away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 06:45:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4819166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j0uii/pseuds/j0uii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will and Hannibal talk. And do nothing else.<br/>Follows canon until the last couple of minutes of "Digestivo", when Hannibal makes a different decision. The rest of season 3 doesn't happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Layers of Lies and Truths

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my friend Ana, based on our (many, many) discussions of Hannibal. She wondered "what if" Hannibal basically chose not to be a "possessive asshole" (my interpretation of her much nicer words). There is mild swearing in the text as well.

 

_“Folly, I say, that both makes friends and keeps them so.”_

Erasmus, _In Praise of Folly_

 

Will woke up with a jerk, grasping at a shallow breath, his eyes unable to focus. _What else is new_ floated through his mind; he smiled. He felt around the surface of his bed, eyes fixed on the clock now, waiting for his focus to shift, touched lightly by the tired start of sun rays through his window. 5:47 AM. _Ah_. Two hours of sleep, _what else is new_. At least the nightmare wasn’t more than a few seconds long. He hoped.

His glasses were on the floor, and for a few seconds he weighed the purpose of picking them up. His eyes trailed to Winston besides him, as he reached for the glasses. He would need them if he was going out. And he had to go out. His throat was dry, and he felt like he was being buried alive in living sand from the inside.

Slowly he pushed himself off the bed to the cold floor, its imperfect surface soothing for a few seconds. Sobering. He felt pride for not being drunk.  He was thinking about how he had planned to become one, because that seemed like a logical thing to become then. Logical as in the only thing left. But he had also remembered his father, stumbling and vomiting, helpless and pathetic, and decided against time being measured with glasses. Always better to stick to teacups. He smiled again.

Not that he didn’t drink at all. It just didn’t bring comfort anymore. He took his jeans from the washed out light brown chair besides his bed and pushed his feet into a pair of boots left sprawled under it. _I really shouldn’t leave those here_ , but it was easy and he knew he will do it again, so he brushed the thought aside.

He picked up Winston gently into his arms and went outside.

*

When he came back into the house, the silence was almost too much to withstand. It swayed and swallowed him on the border between real and not. He stood at the door, surveying the room. The sand was rising steadily, and he wished it reached above him already, he wished for his arms to start flailing, he wished for wishing they would. At least pretend he would do futile things to save himself. He felt disgusted at _all the fucking self-pity_ , and then it passed. It became so easy to pull himself back now from that inward aggression, but never easy enough not to start feeling it in the first place. _I can live with that_ ; he smiled.

The house had changed in the last n+1 years.  Not a lot by other people's standards, but quite a bit for his own. Maybe that is why it felt unreal. _No_. Every night, he would wake up, shaking and confused, his mind swarming with unrelenting fear, his body unresponsive to even a semblance of instruction, and he wouldn’t recognize the house at all. He knew what to look for at those moments, and it always helped.  At first he hated that it helped, but like any ritual, it became acceptable, then wanted, then needed. He smiled again. He felt pride that his smiles were genuine, at least when he was on his own, fully awake in the boat house, among all the reminders it contained in itself.

He sat on the edge of the bed, and looked at his gun, laying silent on the night table. He mulled over his regrets, trying to find some structure to them, but finding no solid threads to hold on to. _Straws would be a more suitable term_. He really could not help himself. He found that funny. He took the gun in his hand, mulling over the gun's regrets now. It sure had a clearer understanding of those, than him of his own. It felt heavy, and somehow less significant than before. His badge was still on the stand. His almost-badge. The gun was real. And still almost-useless. He growled at the trivial symbolism of it all.

*

Will woke up. No jerks, no shaking, no sweat. Instead of feeling pride for the first nightmareless _really, I’m just making up words now_ night in n+1 years, he just got out of bed, surface, cold, _yes_ , boots, _of course_ , clothes on the chair, _sure_ , glasses on the floor, _where else_ , shower first maybe, _should_ , silence, still there, _why expect anything different_.

He loved it when he woke up with such optimism. He smiled. Shower done, dressing done, glasses done, he moved the chair, grabbed a small packed bag from under his bed, looked at the clock, focus was good, 6:23 AM, he blinked away the sudden sensation of sand sipping through, and walked out the door. Before he went to his car, he walked towards the little beds of earth at the edge of the forest behind the house, one just a few days old, stood there in silence, and needing to see them all fully again, he let the pendulum swing.

*

Will felt the subtle scent of sea in the air; he smiled. He knew the sea was far away enough, but feeling imagined sea saltiness was still better than hallucinating murder victims staring at him from across the table. Or the edge of the bed. Or the corners of his bathroom. _Really, they were not even letting me shit in peace._ He smiled again. He was trying not to think about the last time he was here, not to remember his decision before he walked into the Gallery, not to remember the sickening sadness that overwhelmed him when he took the steps inside and realized he was right.

He just sat on the sidewalk stairs opposite the entrance now, and let his mind summon it all back; let his blood carry it all the way through to the skin. He had to. He was here and it was time and it was unavoidable. Minutes passed. He growled at the symbolism of it all.

He wasn’t surprised when he felt someone sit down next to him, to his right. Surprises were a thing of the past for him.

“Hello Will.”

“Hello Hannibal.”

“It almost lacks the honorific sting to it, don’t you think?”

His blood reached the skin, and it was almost like none of the +1 years happened. Almost. His eyes were still fixated on the Gallery door.

“I was counting on the symbolism of intimacy to ease the symbolism of the past of this place.”

“Counting on or simply hoping?”

“There is nothing simple about hope.”

“There is, when its price had already been payed.”

Will could not tear his eyes away from the door. He was almost angry at himself, at this reverse hypnosis, how easy it was, how routine, how freeing. Until he realized it wasn’t anger at all. It was relief. Even his relief was violent. Finally he looked down at his watch. He could feel Hannibal's eyes trailing his.

“My name is Will Graham, it is 5:06 AM, today is Friday, February 9th 2024, I am in Florence, Italy.”

Hannibal chuckled. _Since when does he chuckle._

“I must admit that I am quite pleased that at least a part of our therapy was successful.”

“Oh, our therapy was wholly successful, Doctor.”

“Still problem-free, Will?”

“Still alike, Hannibal.” Will chuckled now. _Since when is chuckling an acceptable part of our collection of sounds._

Will almost growled at the symbolism of it all. Almost.

Silence settled between them. He was thinking about how strange it was that the one, _two, if I'm being generous_ , years of friendship could still feel more real and present than the next n+1 that followed. Why was he even calling it a friendship? Shouldn’t that designation seem stranger, considering what it entailed, than the pure fact of his memory of it? He knew the answers to these questions, they were thought over so many times before; it was just a habit of asking them. _A tough habit to break_. This should feel like walking on a loose string tied at the corners of the gaping crater of their past. There should be echoes. There should be dread. Of course there weren’t. There was so much more.

“I almost surrendered to Jack that day,” he heard Hannibal's voice.

“I guessed as much.” Will's eyes shot up to meet Hannibal's. Just the eyes, like that isn’t too much already. He felt fear, and guilt, and familiarity, and violent relief again. He wasn’t sure whose. “I was thinking you would, hoping you wouldn’t.”

“Easier now to admit to hope?”

“Didn’t call it hope back then.”

“You wanted closure.”

“I needed closure. I was sure you wouldn't allow it to me.”

“Many expectations were frustrated that day.”

“I found your notebook near the house. How long did you remain there?”

“Time had lost its constraints on me, or I on it. The periphery of my mind was blinded by an image of bright lights, while there were no clear lines leading towards its center. Decisions obscured by non-action.”  

 _And here come the non-answers_. Will felt like he was staring through Hannibal. Slowly, he tried focusing his eyes more. He was ready to see again. As Hannibal's face was starting to take shape, Will could hear the pendulum, without the effort to swing it. Without direct intention. He felt like he was standing near the house, then, the numbness of smoldering cold shooting up through his body, the only thing that made it at all bearable to stay there. Through the window, he saw himself sitting on his bed, looking at the empty chair.

“How long before you allowed yourself to move the chair, Will?”

“How long before you regretted leaving me the notebook?”

He knew he was being was snippy. Internal sand was rising again, and he wanted to stop it, but the grains were slipping through his manic grips, and the never-ending stream of it just piled up, until he felt like it finally reached his mouth and started spilling, and then cascading on further to another plane, and then another, even deeper more. If there was anything Will Graham could claim, it was that he had plenty of insides.

He knew the answer to Hannibal's question, of course, as obviously as he knew he was thinking about it, _not the first time_ even with no prompt from the man. It was just a matter of saying it out loud. Did he have to say it aloud? Why all the dodging then. Force of habit, _always buying more time_. Hannibal knew all the same answers. He always knew. He enjoyed asking the questions, because he knew the torture spelling _spilling is more accurate_ out answers was for Will. It was a part of their never-ending zero-sum game. This was different though. Will hoped. So he answered.

“I didn’t, I haven't. Moved it. Until yesterday. Does that please you?”

“Less than what you fear it might.”

“You were watching me, when you went outside.”

“Yes.”

“You saw me.”

“I saw enough.”

“When was enough ever acceptable for you?”

“I knew you wanted the words you spoke to be true, and I knew that you doubted they were. When I closed the door behind me, I was set to address your doubts. Determined.”

“So you stood in the freezing snow for hours, waiting for the FBI. I would say it was some lazy psychiatry Doctor, but I wouldn’t want us in that vicious circle again.”

“Desperation often leads us towards what it perceives as the shortest path to its end.”

“We both payed Charon with that same cheap coin then.”

“Death was always an acceptable risk.”

“Preferable, in some instances.”

Hannibal turned a bit toward him. Still moving like a fucking robot from some cheap movie, _no wonder he needs the spare parts_. Will pondered if this was better spoken aloud, instead of unresolvable confessions. Tin Man in need of organs, except for the heart. _Isn’t irony beautiful_.

“The universal applicability of that assumption reveals its truest beauty.”

“It is not universal if it implies only you and me.”

“It would have been easier if I had just killed you then.”

“You would have to be a smidge more specific than that, given our rich history.”

“Along with Abigail.”

“Ah. Why didn't you?”

“Same reason you are here today, and not tomorrow, or in a week, or last year.”

“Is this our anniversary then? Celebrated with a diamond gift?”

“Diamonds are created through the bonding of the atoms, and judged by their clarity.”

“Do you feel clarity now?”

“More than what you hope I might.”

Will replaced 'hope' with 'dread' in his thoughts. Then with 'expect', with 'tolerate', and 'abhor', and a long line of other words. He was amused by the fact that the sentence never felt different to him, its meaning staying stable, unflinching. Even linguistics was failing him now. 

“You are aware then that the anniversary is tomorrow. If we are strictly talking about the date.”

“Tomorrow is between me and your scar. The day before, today, that was between me and you.”

“Always clinging to your own little rituals, aren't you Hannibal.”

 _Ouch. I am an asshole._ Hannibal had a faint smile on his lips, and his eyes were entertained. _And still, I am never a bigger asshole than him._

“And you say you do not delight in wickedness.”

Will laughed. He was thinking about his almost-two previous nightmareless nights, even with one of them spent on a plane, with people around him. Then he realized Hannibal laughed too. It was virtually silent, but it was there. It was bordering on unreal. _Linguistics: 2, Will Graham: 1_.

“I wonder how long you have been waiting to say that.”

“You know how carefully I craft my plans, Will.”

“Is today special because that is when you realized I ruined your carefully crafted plans?”

“Back to business so swiftly, never a wasted opportunity to satisfy your mind's persistent curiosity. And no, it is not about my realization. Not that one in particular, at least.”

“How did you know, exactly? While we're on the subject.”

“Ms Lounds’ smell was much richer on you than on our plates.”

“That is some deus ex machina smelling epiphany you had, Doctor. When?”

“In my office, while we were immolating my life.”

“Resentment does not fit your suits, Hannibal. Or are you just trying to make shame bloom from the ashes of that fire?”

“Truth masked as an undignified feeling is still a truth. Tempting to fall back into familiar patterns of manipulation.”

“That is a vicious circle I would like to step out of. There is no point to it, not anymore. You were hurt, then angry, then enraged, then vicious. I understand that there is still some form of resentment lingering on. I know its ghost is still there, even if its body died a long time ago.”

Will let his eyes slip away from Hannibal, and glide around their shared space on the steps. Everywhere around them he saw all their ghosts with clarity. They were clamoring, in a cacophony of tries to get noticed, to grab, and pull, and overtake. His were not different than Hannibal's. He couldn’t even pick his own, not even when he recognized what each was. Or what each represented.

“We could charge tickets to haunted houses.”

“And we would still be the only two people to ever have any fun in there.”

“Is that what we are doing now, Will?”

“Always. Our ghosts are our fools. Vessels of cheery chronic truths.”

“So, what truths do you want my jesters to tell you about this day?”

“When you knew, when the realization was clear, what was the first thing you thought?”

“That the decision will be mine.”

“Predictable. You allowed no doubts then.”

“Possessive of my reality. The price of protecting it was acceptable. Then.”

“Especially since it was stripped bare by the fire. Not much of it was left.”

Will felt the sea drops in the air again. If it were tomorrow, he would be sure it was the Baltimore rain. But it was today, and tomorrow was almost 18 hours away. He realized where the feeling was from. He decided not to say anything about it.

Hannibal was still sitting to his right, turned slightly towards him. _God, that man could be a living statue for a living._

“Even the remains have intrinsic value.”

“Especially to vultures. And gravediggers.”

“Both offer closure.”

“Did you feel closure that day, Hannibal?”

“Not that day, no. I felt comfort in consequences.”

“Because you knew what the consequences would demand of you. The violence, the ruthlessness, the cutting. The Ripper set free.”

“At that moment, that was as comforting as I could wish for.”

“One of the instances of death being preferable.”

“Even mine, yes.”

“You see reality from the other side of the border, the death's side of it.”

“I see no border there.”

“But you were nevertheless excited by my ability to hop over it so effortlessly.”

“I appreciate the company.”

“Is that why you still asked me to run? Was it a test or an offer?”

“It was a demand.”

“Masked as mercy.”

“Most of my demands usually are.”

“You allowed no possibility of my indecision?”

“Were you really?”

“I was torn long before your knife even touched my skin.”

Will reached for the scar instinctively. He always felt Abigail's blood seep from it more than his own.

“That was enough to spare your life, but it wasn’t enough to spare Abigail's.”

“I thought we were letting the fools speak the truths.”

“It's a facet of the truth.”

“One of the polished sides of the diamond. Show me the rough, untreated sides of it.”

“You just assume there are those as well.”

“The doubts you didn’t allow, I didn’t mean mine. I meant yours.”

“I know what you meant, Will.”

“Were those hiding below the untreated surfaces?”

“Not hiding. Ignored.”

“Chance misfirings of unruly neurons in the bone arena of your skull. Doubts come quickly, forts even quicker.”

“I deserve this ambush in particular.” _Chuckle chuckle chuckle._

“We are calling it doubt now, but we really should be using a whole other word, aren’t we?”

“Depends which side of the border you are standing on.”

“No conditional demarcations now, Hannibal.”

“Once I promised you - and myself - consequences, the word you want to hear spoken now lost its value, while its price became untenable. And you know I always keep my promises.”

“The other word had an implied promise too. Fuck, its whole meaning relies on implied promises.” 

“Implications were not enough, once my own words were explicit.”

“It is funny, looking at it from this perspective, that implications were too pricey for you.”

“Do you know what else had no value, but cost a lot?”

“My phone call the next day?”

“Three unused plane tickets. The call too, in all honesty. Though I did come to appreciate its cost, in time.”

“The two you did use were affordable then.”

“Different plane. Cheaper in every way.”

“And cheaper had never been satisfying enough for you.”

“How much did your ticket here cost, Will?”

“Do you really want to know, or are you just curious whether it is a one-way?”  

“I think I can safely guess what it is. More interesting for me at this moment is that you yourself are not prepared to use your unspoken word in calculating its price.”

“What a subtle way of calling me a hypocrite.”

“And here I am trusting you that you wanted to step out of that vicious circle.”

“If I didn’t know you better, I would think that was a Freudian slip.”

“But you do know me better.”

That he did. The two of them were always a mess of contradictions. _Intersecting parallel lines_. Merciless paradoxes, often inflicted on each other.

“So, why is today about you and me?”

“It was the last time I took the decision completely away from you.”

“And what would you call cutting into my skull to harvest my brain then?”

“A light dinner.”

Chuckling again. Even the loud sound the ghosts were making was subdued, uninterfering, reduced to an almost pleasurable hum. _Our own elevator music_. Will was amused by that metaphor, and more so by the feeling that despite the elevator often going down deep into the dark parking spaces of their palace, it did not seem like falling. Gravitation was a choice for them. Press of a button in the vacuum of the inexorable chaos of their own making.

“You needed closure more than I did, at that moment.”

“When neither fire, blood, nor water truly afforded one, yes, it felt appropriate that consuming would. The symbolism was fully present, timing and geography wonderfully merged. It was almost too good to be true.”

“You never let your savagery be as instinctive as relying on your rituals.”

“Unless the two merge as well.”

“And it was, wasn’t it. Too good to be true.”

“Can't say that I didn’t appreciate the irony.”

“It is your favorite appreciation, after all.”

“Recognizing the ‘Infinite I AM’ is never clearer than in the moment when creation and destruction are suspended in their mutual acceptance, all the while their strife is in full force.”

“A destructive repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation.”

“You know your English Romanticism quite well.”

“You know how my memory is.”

“I would say self-deprecation does not fit your suits, but you don’t wear any.”

“Don’t even own one at the moment.”

“And I would have been lying. Your doubts are always remarkable.”

“Do you envy them?”

“You see our ghosts quite clearly, Will. So tell me, do you see my envy among them?”

 _Bastard_.

“It would not have been among the ghosts anyway.”

“Or, you could not recognize it as mine. Even in their clarity, they are blurred. Same as we are.”

“Should I start counting the times you will repeat my words to me today? Will the final number be a sign of something, a new ritual?”

“The past is not just a pure fact that should be disregarded in the relative measures of the present. We lived a significant amount of time with the words, both mine and yours. They are the most living things we accepted.”  

“Embraced.”

“You embrace your doubts. I came to accept them.”

“As you embrace your decisions. Those were harder to accept for me.”

“If I ever truly believed that, I would have continued with outright lies. Not allow my decisions, or myself, become as exposed as we were. Nor as obvious.”

“Doctor Hannibal Lecter, Mister Obvious. Now, that is a book that Chillton should have written.”

“And you think I am not? How did you know when to come?”

“I was sure you would be here every day, if I am the one being totally honest now. Where was not an issue. I am growling at the symbolism of it already.”

“Forever is a living word, just like any other.”

“Were you coming here every day then?”

“Despite my being a creature of elaborate rituals and constricting habits, I am not reckless.”

“Still valuing your freedom above everything I see.”

“I value yours as much as mine, Will.”

“Strange things, our freedoms. Never quite what we want them to be. Destroyed and reconstructed every day, over and over, and still in shapes we do not see as our own.”

“You are avoiding using another word. Second one already. Are we going to have a lot of those today?”

“We have our ghosts, why not an empty dictionary as well.”

“And what was missing from the shapes of your freedom?”

“I almost prefer the times when implications were the underlying melody of our conversations. Unwelcome nostalgia over layers of lies and truths.”

“The desire to feel at home separates us from our desire for freedom, and at the same time, makes it possible. We build our home on layers of lies and truths. We are free to accept and embrace them.”

“Do you feel at home here?”

“These stairs might possibly be a step down from my usual preferences, and I would guess the city of Florence would not be very pleased about it, but I could call it home, if necessary.”

They were both smirking at the image of Hannibal trying to fit his entire kitchen on the few steps of stairs on the street.

“Was this what you planned for us, then?”

“I didn’t have a clear idea of the specifics, or at least they kept changing enough so their shapes eluded me, but otherwise, yes. If I dare go against my nature and state something in simple terms.”

“So you are capable of stating stuff in simple terms. Not just any old Mister Obvious.”

Will looked at Hannibal. He could swear Hannibal's appearance did not change one slightest bit. Still in one of his ridiculous suits, even if it was in a considerably more subdued color combination, _it isn’t as hilarious_ , which means he bought new ones, same style on purpose. They were not just a part of the mask. But he knew that, the fact that the mask was not a simple one, where the surface was Mickey Mouse, and below it was a New Jersey bus driver. _Bus driver in a Mickey Mouse mask? What Halloween am I thinking of?_ Other people were fast to separate the two, or more than two, because it was easier to come to terms with his actions and him being a part of their society. For Will that separation was impossible. His actions, and him being a part of Will's world. Will could not tear the mask off, since under it, there would be the same mask, of flesh, nerves, blood, and bones. Layers of lies and truths. And he was looking at them.

“Do you want to tell me about the chair, Will?”

“In the spirit of simple terms, no.”

“But you will anyway. Even Steven.”

“Is this number 4 now? Do I get a prize at 10?”

“You already got the diamond, in theory, and intent.”

“In fate and circumstance.”

“Still rings with truth, doesn’t it?”

“Your word associations are quite revealing, Doctor.”

“Not more than usual.”

“Did you see my scar that day?”

“I already saw it, after Chiyo put a bullet in you. Stop deflecting.”

“You were standing there outside the house, probably for hours, watching me. You know what I did. And what I kept doing.”

“I don’t know enough.”

“So, now it’s suddenly not enough?”

“Why do you keep referring to it as 'the house'?”

“As opposed to what, “the pigsty', 'the castle', 'the Disneyworld'?” _What the flying fuck is it with me and Disney today?_

“As opposed to 'my house'.”

Will felt his blood boil. The sand inside was burning hot, and choking him, from everywhere, and then it alternated with freezing cold, and he knew he was there in Hannibal's shoes _or were they boots? Where did he get the boots in the first place?_ looking at himself again. His mind went blank with swear words that his mouth was unwilling to release. He wanted to get blinding drunk and run away and scream and cry and drown himself in the nonexistent sea and smash his head on the Gallery door and smash Hannibal's head on the pavement before everything else he did. He must have been grinding his teeth, since Hannibal lowered his eyes in the slightest fashion and an even more slight cock of his head to the right _that fucking robot._ Then their eyes were locked again, and Will knew that Hannibal saw exactly what was happening inside his head. The nakedness was so tiring. _And annoying_. _And frustrating_. _And brutal_. And it was exactly the reason why he was here. Silence of the ghost-hum was enjoyable.

“Will.”

“I’m fine.”

He was calm again. Or as calm as he could be on any given day. He was thinking about the woman on the plane that kept biting her nails, sitting next to him on his left. And the skin below the nails, and around the nails. They were chewed on, and ruined, with ridged edges, and tiny tears on the skin. He had wondered whether she was coming home or going away, and he had wondered what he would call his own travel plans. Was it the former or the latter that made her eat herself out of nervousness? He smiled at the obviousness of his metaphor. He was in a love-hate relationship with linguistics today.

“When I had nightmares, which was every night, or almost every, I would wake up, and not recognize anything around me. I could not recognize the house as my house. I would look at the chair, and it would help. Remind me where I am. Who, what, when. All the big 'W's. I hated it at first. I hated it because it was never empty. I hated it because the reminders would not stop at the recognition of myself. Then I stopped hating it.”

“Is it the hate or the stopping of hate that is making you angry now?”

“It's that both were enough. And that they weren't.”

“Shapes of your freedom never quite what you wanted them to be.”

“I thought it would pass in time. Hoping the exhaustion would pass. At some point, praying it would.”

“Time is not as soothing in effect as we imagine it to be once we let the clock start ticking. God even less so.”

“You were. Even without being there.”

“Did you tell yourself that it was the result of my manipulations and psychic driving that kept me there with you?”

“Too much had happened for me to be able to tell myself that.”

“It wasn’t me that denied you your closure.”

“I had one too many expectations. That's never a good thing.”

“Your mind refused you on what you wanted most.”

“Naïve to want such things.”

“Not naïve, understandable.”

“Did your mind refuse you as well?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“The non-actions didn’t bring relief, as you expected?”

“The concept was formed, but reality was stubborn. You are wrong about one thing, though.”

“I’m surprised it’s just the one.”

“I felt relief that night, when I saw you fall asleep.”

“Made it easier to walk away?”

“Considerably easier.”

“It is my envy I see, then.”

“What reason would you have to be envious?”

“Decisions come easily to you, Hannibal.”

“They often do. Many times purely from a lack of choice.”

“Having no regrets is not a lack of choice.”

“You assume that the easiness, as you call it, is unequivocally correlated with the simplicity of forsaking.”

“What is it correlated with, if anything?”

“What is it that you really want to ask me, Will?”

“What was the first thing you thought after I said goodbye?”

“That the decision would be mine.”

“It seems that’s your first thought to everything.”

“Fight or flight.”

“I would say that now it's pretty clear why you think you have no real choices.”

“And I would say that you wanted to ask something else. Not that I’m a trained psychiatrist or anything. I’m confident I even have degrees and diplomas as proof.”

“Am I your patient again, Doctor Lecter?”

“Do you need therapy?”

“How did it make you feel?”

“I am almost certain that should be my line.”

“No, that's my question.”

 _This shouldn’t feel so good_. Will was grinning. _Show off_. Hannibal was smirking. He fiddled with his legs, trying to cross them.

“Hurt, angry, enraged, vicious?”

“Pick one or all of the above?”

“Do you presume it is a struggle for me to talk about my feelings?”

“After a point, yes.”

“And you feel we have reached that point?”

“We are years and years beyond that point.”

“Million-years-before-light-reaches-us beyond?”

“I am getting so close to 10 now. And I am expecting another rare gift, just so you know.”

“You get your reckoning. I always keep my promises, even when they're yours.”

“Who's deflecting now, Hannibal?”

It took Hannibal a few seconds. Will thought about how different he and Hannibal were in that moment: Will would take a few seconds to reach for a mask of linguistics; Hannibal took time to tear the mask off. _Or is it the other way round_. All the ghosts fucking laughed at Will’s attempt to set clear lines.

“There was emptiness, welcome and repulsive at the same time, oozing from what felt like a gaping wound in my mind, while questioning the possibility of breathing when it felt like the blood had stopped. There was an urge to act, to put chains of logical necessity on a fluidity that was ruthlessly mocking any such attempt. There was a freeing thought that killing you would be futile. Absconded rituals, and silenced savagery.”

“What were you left with?”

“Pettiness.”

“I’m surprised that that is how the need for retaking control felt like to you.”

“It’s just a temporary name given in these circumstances.”

“For a ‘verified narcissistic psychopath’, you do avoid using “I” to the extreme measures.”

Hannibal laughed. This time it was audible.

“I am aware.”

“What did you call it then? If it is named pettiness now?”

“Lack of choice. The need to separate that moment from everything else. Pure resolve tearing through the strata of welcome repulsion.”

“You were satisfied you came up with an answer to which I would have nothing to add to.”

“Satisfied wouldn’t even begin to describe it.”

“Ah. That’s why the pettiness.”

“Fight was always a correct choice to make that far. I knew you were lying while you were saying the truth. Manipulating what feelings you thought I had. Trying to force my hand in surrender.”

“-To- surrender.”

“I felt I already did. Just the possibility of future was comforting. I was proud.”

“Proud of yourself, or of me?”

“Both. I could have laughed at the irony of my decision, and at the position you put me in. In fact I did, a little, after I left.”

“Exchanging your freedom for another round of the unwinnable game. It was kinda funny.”

“The chrysalis giving birth to another surprise.”

“Rejection came as a surprise to you, Hannibal?”

“Surprise is the designation I used to replace the lack of miracles.”

“You do love your teacup metaphor.”

“Freud is on thin ice today.”

“Wasn’t he always.”

“All I could think of was how to win.”

“And you do love to win.”

Will was trying to picture a cosmic scale that could weigh all the shit they poured on each other. Objectively, Hannibal would always win. The amount of pain that man inflicted upon Will and Will’s world was incomprehensible. Incommensurable. At his best, Will could be objective. At his worst, Will felt victorious. _But the fucking scale was broken_ , measuring subjectivity not objectivity, _and I’m_ n _ot really sure which one is my best_. Gravity was a choice for them; the scales would always be skewed. There was no logic to this.

“I saw through the layers of lies. You wanted to know where I was; you wanted to know where you can always find me. I wanted to give you that. And I wanted to take everything else from you. My mind was focused on the brazen dare of your doubts. Thrilled by the urge to strangle them, since doing the same to your neck was proving to be impossible. Then I saw through the layers of truths.”

“I was tired, Hannibal. I was tired of our past, and even more tired of our future. I saw it happening, and I couldn’t prevent it anymore. When I woke up I was angry you didn’t just kill me. Or let Mason do it. When I thought I couldn’t be torn apart any more than I was, that there was no flesh left on my skeleton, I recognized there will always be more. That your hunger for playing and your determination to win were insatiable. And that I wanted to feed them, feed you.”

“The symmetry of concepts we chose to ignore is striking.”

“I only realized that when Jack came and you refused to play your petty game.”

“Were you that certain of my actions before?”

“I was certain of your choices, not your actions.”

“There was no ignoring my worst anymore, was there.”

“I was sure that by then I saw it all.”

“You were blind.”

“Tired of seeing. Exhausted. Of both your worst and mine.”

“Darkness does not allow an unspoiled differentiation of alternatives.”

“It allowed you.”

“I accept its presence.”

“You welcome it.”

“You are delineating borders again, where I see none.”

“And you keep striving to make me erase them.”

“You already had.”

“Were you hoping I would come out and look for you, Hannibal?”

“No.”

“And you still allowed no doubts.”

“Did you want to come out and look for me, Will?”

“Always.”

 _The truth shall set you free indeed_. The elevator stopped. Ghost-hum continued. A silence this long should feel uncomfortable.

“That is the truth I saw. Watching you, alone. The first irony being that I was willing to exchange my freedom for making sure you never had yours, for another round of the unwinnable game, as you called it. It was easier than acknowledging that you had something I wanted equally, if not much more.”

“And the second was that you, that we couldn’t have it, unless the game stopped. Which meant you walking away.”

“ _Two souls, alas, are dwelling in my breast, and one is striving to forsake its brother._ ”

“I assumed you would despise Faust.”

“I did always relate to Mephistopheles with no self-imposed boundaries.”

“How much more predictable can this statement even be?”

“Implying I’m the devil. How droll.”

“As good an analogy as there is.”

“And if I’m Faust, then you know – by the same analogy – who would that make you.”

“Fuck you.”

They laughed. Ghosts were being disorderly.

“Though, unlike him, I did succeed in saving you from prison.”

“After you put me there.”

“Details.”

“We lost the exact same thing.”

“At that moment, our desires for a home and our desires for freedom were not only mutually exclusive for each of us, but suspended in inversed reciprocity between the two of us.”

“And there was nothing you could do.” 

“What did you want me to do, Will?”

“I really just wanted that you do what I ask.”

“For once?”

“Forever.”

“Do you still want that?”

“I did not know what to do with it even when I did get it.”

“I would say “god have mercy on me” now, but I would just expect him to add another church collapse to my collection.”

“And you did, you finally had done what I asked of you, and it still didn’t matter.”

“Imagine if I hadn't.”

Will's mind painted a clear enough picture. A single image, of a huge empty room with sparse decorations, its concrete walls plastered with forensic photographs and three dimensional details of his cases from past n+1 years in a chaotic whirlwind, somehow magnified in cruelty, the reach of their depravity washing over his whole world, his drowning inside sand boiling with blood in constant fear of his own skin.

He felt every gunshot he fired ricocheting between the walls, all of them ending in his body. They didn’t hurt, they just left burning hollowness. As the bullets were ripping apart his flesh he felt sadness they were ineffectual. 

He felt his own reluctance palpable in his mouth, and a devastating desire for another life, one which would at least allow him to pretend he was at peace and existing in the world, outside the one of his own mind. He felt pressure of a storm pushing down on his chest and his limbs, an overpowering force of self-punishment. Blood was dripping from his nose; he knew it wasn’t his, while he somehow knew it was his family’s. He smelled his own determination and felt bones bursting in his body, their poison shooting out of the cells of his skin and twisting in with the whirlwind of evidence and bullets. The room was simultaneously frozen and burning; his sight was obscured by a flood of embodied regrets and his hearing smothered by a crushing sound of the flap of a dragon's wings.

Then, he could see himself from behind, and see puppet strings hooked under his skin, leaving deep scars that would not heal, and multiple sets of hands playing with the thick synthetic lines to which the hooks were tied. He felt like he had another pair of eyes on the back of his head which were there for the sole reason of waiting for, and then imprinting into his mind, the moment when the guillotine blade dropped and severed his neck.

And in the center of all the noise, motion, horror and blood, exactly opposite of him like in a perfect mirror, separated only by a thick plexiglas wall made of lust and loathing was Hannibal, standing alone in the big room, wearing a pale grey jumpsuit.   

Will didn’t think he would ever feel his nightmares were _better than_ _something_.     

“You would have looked silly in a single-tone suit.”

“If you must insist on calling it a suit.”

“You in prison, or you free. Neither would, or did bring me peace. The choice between suffering being manipulated as your agency in the world, or hating the simplest symbol of you in my life, that I could not make myself even move, let alone get rid of.”

“Because you assumed that time would not only be enough, but that it was the only mechanism necessary for the simplicity of forsaking. Wherever I was.”

“Time was all I had left.”

“You had the chair, too.”

“Which was more than what you had?”

“Including my notebook, that was three more.”

“You were ready.”

“For quite a while now. You didn’t ask me why -I- am here today.”

“How exactly did you know I would be here?”

“I tracked your name on all the incoming flights.”

“Oh.”

“So pedestrian, in comparison to what you thought, isn’t it?”

“And if I had used an alias?”

“I was sure you wouldn’t.”

“Why would you be so sure of that?”

“Because you knew I wouldn’t be able to track it then.”

“What do you have in your pockets now?”

“Is it your fear or your hope asking?”

“With you, they were always the same.”

“I am not here to kill you Will.”

“Not even a little bit?”

“Do you want to die?”

“It is still easy to imagine us both on the same side of the border.”

“Circumstance prevented me when the fate was there, and then fate itself disengaged.”

“You fall back to abstract concepts when your decisions are challenged.”

“What else is there to fall back to?”

“Still trying to entertain yourself, Hannibal. Do you ever wish to stop?”

“Is that what you truly wanted me to do?”

“I would have been delusional to think your past and your future wouldn’t always strive for symmetry.”

“You felt responsible. You still do.”

“I felt guilty. I still do.”

“Guilty because you knew what I was, and needed me in spite of that.”

“Because of that.”

“Your offer of forgiveness did always come with my death as a price attached to it. Or was it yours?”

“I could only have forgiven you for what you did to me. Not the others.”

“Your life was the only one that mattered to me.”

“And because of that, my own mattered to me less and less.”

“We are back to appreciating irony again.”

“I wasn’t ready to make the trade you wanted me to make.”

“I do regret that, Will.”

“That you failed to push me hard enough?”

“No. I regret that my decisions, for all of the rational and emotional necessity I felt, left you with only one path.”

“Trade the world, for you. And I will kill you with my bare hands right now if you say “even Steven” again.”

“Is there another way to look at it?”

“Objectively, no.”

“Eventually, no matter what I wanted or how much I pushed you, manipulated, twisted, or persuaded you; that particular choice would have always been entirely yours to make.”

“That’s one of the reasons I still feel guilty.”

“But you do feel I made no trade at all or at least none of any significant consequences to me.”

“I know I am being unfair. Just adds to my guilt.”

“The untreated surfaces of our diamonds cut both ways, Will. Choosing to ignore them is still a choice, no matter how carefully the justification is constructed.”

“I am not choosing to ignore them, Hannibal. I remember the fire in your office, and all that it took to make it burn. I remember the last time we were here, inside, your words and mine are still clear in my mind, and how willingly you walked out first, unmistakably aware of what I might try to do. I remember how we left the Farm, even as I was slipping in and out of consciousness. And I know, know so fucking well, at this moment painfully well, how the snow burned under you, and how it still was the only thing that was remotely bearable while you grasped the price of your decisions.”

“And you still feel it was easy for me. Because decisions come easy to me.”

“It’s not that it was easy. It’s that they were decisions.”

“And what does your trade feel like?”

“Like a verdict.”

Will felt sadness, coming in devastating waves, and anger in surges, infused with his inner sand. There was nowhere the sand could go, he felt powerless, numb. _Stop_.   

“But the reason you are feeling anger and sadness isn’t because you feel judged by it, is it?”

“No.”

“You appointed yourself the role of the executioner.”

Will was silent. He tried, and failed to speak. He tried, and failed, again. Hannibal turned towards him fully.

“Is that what you are afraid of Will?”

“I am afraid of it, from either your side of the border, or from mine. The reasons are still there, like the last time we were here.”

“My death was always going to be at someone else’s hand. I prefer yours over God’s.”

“And people call -you- a narcissistic psychopath.”

“You are neither of those things though.”

“But we are both executioners.”

“With slightly different mandates.”

“If I accept yours, I would have to accept mine as well.”

“Do you believe that will create the balance you crave?”

“Logic says yes.”

“Logic said that time would be enough too.”

“Have you finally given up on logic, Doctor Lecter?”

“It has become, at most, a pleasurable inconvenience.”

“And an unpleasant convenience for me. At least.”

“How many deadly force incidents did you cause in the last nine years?”

“Seven. Do I dare ask you the same thing?”

“I will answer should you ask, Will.”

“My scar might ask you tomorrow.”

“Those seven, how did you see them?”

“An upfront payment.”

“Your god of justice always eagerly expecting sacrifices.”

“It’s the second worst kind of contract to get out of.”

“Both are signed in blood.”

“And afford the allowance of time.”

“How many years did your seven buy me? Or is it hours?”

“Is that what you think I did? Why I did… Is that why you think I’m here, Hannibal?”

“When the miracles and surprises are abolished, only reality persists.”

“And here we are, as immersed in it as we had ever been.”

“Should we compare, count and compound our mutually inflicted realities?”

“And you doubted we were having fun.”

“Never doubted that.”

“Ok, let’s see, from your side… Tobias, Randall, your kitchen, the brain thing.”

“I strongly object to your including my kitchen in this list.”

“Your intentions would have not precluded the possible, very realistic, outcomes.”

“If we focus entirely on the outcomes, our intentions lose all significance.”

“From my side – the Minnesota kitchen, the brown hawk, your kitchen, and then of course, the dropped forgiveness.”

“Literally just a few steps away.”

“Are you feeling nostalgic?”

“I can still hear the metal hitting the ground.”

“Even in this there is no clear winner between us.”

“Why is it then that you always assume you lost?”

“Because, Hannibal, we didn’t count all the others from your side.”

“That is our reality, yes.”

“Were any of those lives sacrificed for mine?”

“Is the idea of balance that important to you?”

“Answer me.”

“No, Will, they weren’t. Not that you didn’t know that already.”

“Not even Abigail?”

“If anything, she was a sacrifice to my rage, not to you, or instead of you.”

“She was just a convenient inconvenience.”

“You wanted to see me. And so you did.”

“Was it hard to walk away from us?”

“Harder than what I estimated it would be. Considerably harder.”

“Comforting to know that sometimes even you fail at estimations.”

“When you were concerned, almost all of my considerations failed me spectacularly.”

“All except…?”

“The one that is beyond my conscious ability to control or predict. Or negotiate.”

“Is?”

“Did you presume differently?”

“Why do you presume then that you know what those seven bought you? Or me?”

“I may not actually feel all the emotions you do, and especially not the ethical imperatives, but I am not oblivious to them. I understand the conflict. And your need to act on it.”

“You enjoy the paradox.”

“While you enjoy the anguish of it. It wouldn’t feel real to you otherwise.”

“If analyzing me was bad, diagnosing me is even worse.”

“I am doing no such thing. Without proper context, and more importantly, proper intentions, a half-effort of a diagnosis is just a glorified name-calling.”  

“Was this what you wanted, then?”

“I wanted your mouth full of blood. Each hair on your body electrified by the ruthless power from inside you. It wasn’t enough just to see, by you or me.”

“You wanted to share.”

“Obsessively.”

“You were blind.”

“Unable to conceive, to imagine the second after. And then I could. You did already change me. It was not a cathartic epiphany of any kind; it was just an indirect addition.”

“Was that why you left your formulas notebook?”

“The broken ceramics pieces were piling up.”

“I took it as an apology.”

“As limited by my capability for it as it was.”

“Irony number three. We would always have had that second after. With blood, or without it. Do you understand?”

“We would, but not until you were ready to make that trade.”

“I had a couple more ‘even Stevens’ that I needed to honor.”

“I’m nothing if not patient.”

“Obsessive.”

Will smiled as he felt the subtle addition of understanding Hannibal’s reliance on decisions. _Finally_.

“You reduced your world on purpose.”

“Are you insulted by that, Hannibal?”

“That you felt it was necessary for you to have nothing to be able to trade it for an airplane ticket? Really not fucking surprised.”

“I let the mechanism of time take its course. And, wow.”

“Waded into the quiet of the stream.”

“It was either that, or throwing us together off a cliff.”

“So tell me this, Will: in retrospect, would you estimate the price of your ticket to be extremely cheap or unbearably excessive?”

“It was the only ticket left.”

“Priceless, then.”

“Nice try. Nobody else wanted it.”   

“Is that how you truly see it?”

“At my best.”

“Lucky for us then that I bring out your worst.” 

Will laughed. _I fucking missed the honesty_. He felt a suitable shape of freedom was forming around him. Fitting him like an infant’s stretchie. _At least it wasn’t diapers_.

“They often switch places anyway.”

“That was always a big part of my fascination with you.”

“I might, probably, almost certainly, never be able to prevent those switches.”

“Wouldn’t expect you to.”

“Anymore.”

“I’m just glad you’re here.”

Will got up, made a few steps towards the edge of the street, took out his phone, took the sim card out, and threw both in the trash. He had nothing else in his pockets. He walked back to the steps. When he sat down, he took Hannibal's hand in his own, entwining their fingers.

“I would like you to show me Florence.”

A moment later, Will felt he was looking at them from further away, from behind. He saw two men sitting on the street, at dawn, in front of the Uffizi Gallery, and he had nothing to add to the picture.

**Author's Note:**

> I chose the date (February 9th, 2014/2024) arbitrarily, but not randomly.


End file.
